Evolution of the Size-Mass Relation of Star-forming Galaxies Since $z=5.5$ Revealed by CEERS

Understand

We combine deep imaging data from the CEERS early release JWST survey and HST imaging from CANDELS to examine the size-mass relation of star-forming galaxies and the morphology-quenching relation at stellar masses $\textrm{M}_{\star} \geq 10^{9.5} \ \textrm{M}_{\odot}$ over the redshift range $0.5 < z < 5.5$.

• In this study with a sample of 2,450 galaxies, we separate star-forming and quiescent galaxies based on their star-formation activity and confirm that star-forming and quiescent galaxies have different morphologies out to $z=5.5$, extending the results of earlier studies out to higher redshifts.
• We find that star-forming and quiescent galaxies have typical S\'{e}rsic indices of $n\sim1.3$ and $n\sim4.3$, respectively.
• Focusing on star-forming galaxies, we find that the slope of the size-mass relation is nearly constant with redshift, as was found previously, but shows a modest increase at $z \sim 4.2$.